1. Field
The disclosed and claimed concept relates generally to handheld electronic devices and, more particularly, to a handheld electronic device and method that enable the input of text in a language, such as the Thai language, that employs characters other than Roman characters.
2. Background Information
Numerous types of handheld electronic devices are known. Examples of such handheld electronic devices include, for instance, personal data assistants (PDAs), handheld computers, two-way pagers, cellular telephones, and the like. Many handheld electronic devices also feature wireless communication capability, although many such handheld electronic devices are stand-alone devices that are functional without communication with other devices.
Such handheld devices are often used by people that speak multiple languages. Many languages, including the English language, use Roman characters (sometimes also referred to as Latin characters), and thus when a user wishes to input text into a handheld electronic device in such a language, a keyboard including Roman characters, such as a standard QWERTY keyboard, provided as part of the device may be used. However, some languages employ, either partially or entirely, a set of non-Roman characters. One such language is the Thai language. In particular, the Thai alphabet employs 71 non-Roman characters including consonants, vowels, tones and diacritics. It would be desirable for a keyboard on a handheld electronic device to provide the ability to enter text using these 71 characters. However, a typical QWERTY keyboard employed on a handheld electronic device has 28 character keys corresponding to the Roman characters. Therefore, a regular QWERTY keyboard cannot accommodate all 71 characters used in Thai script. It thus would be desirable to provide an improved method and handheld electronic device that facilitate the input of text in a language, such as the Thai language, that employs characters other than Roman characters.
Similar numerals refer to similar parts throughout the specification.